Taking the contest to the community / Santa Cruz surfers vie for spots in professional event

Paul McHugh, Chronicle Outdoors Writer

Published
4:00 am PDT, Thursday, October 19, 2006

2006-10-19 04:00:00 PDT Santa Cruz -- Sunrise made a dim band of light above Monterey. A lone rider practiced carving turns on a low swell that coursed past Lighthouse Point at the famed Steamer Lane surf break in Santa Cruz. Young men slowly gathered, hoods on dark sweatshirts raised against the chill, tall cups of take-out coffee clutched in their fists.

Start of the O'Neill Cold Water Classic surf contest was scheduled for 8 a.m. Tuesday. A tradition since 1987, when surf-wear-maker O'Neill became lead sponsor of a contest that had launched two years earlier, the Cold Water Classic is one of three "four-star" U.S. contests. (They rate one-to-six stars on an international circuit run by the world's lead sanctioning body, the Association of Surfing Professionals.)

"It's the low end of contestable," Klugel said. "This swell ranges 1 to 4 feet high. But there's a way to connect several turns before a wave dies. A surfer with good leg speed might be able to launch for a high-score maneuver, like an aerial.

Local surfer Shane Desmond, 36, of Santa Cruz, checks out the low swell at Steamer Lane before jumping into the surf to compete on Tuesday in Wildcard Heat Four of the O'Neill Coldwater Classic contest at Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz on Tuesday, October 16, 2006. MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOGRAPHER AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/ - MAGS OUT less

Local surfer Shane Desmond, 36, of Santa Cruz, checks out the low swell at Steamer Lane before jumping into the surf to compete on Tuesday in Wildcard Heat Four of the O'Neill Coldwater Classic contest at ... more

Photo: Paul McHugh

Photo: Paul McHugh

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Local surfer Shane Desmond, 36, of Santa Cruz, checks out the low swell at Steamer Lane before jumping into the surf to compete on Tuesday in Wildcard Heat Four of the O'Neill Coldwater Classic contest at Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz on Tuesday, October 16, 2006. MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOGRAPHER AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/ - MAGS OUT less

Local surfer Shane Desmond, 36, of Santa Cruz, checks out the low swell at Steamer Lane before jumping into the surf to compete on Tuesday in Wildcard Heat Four of the O'Neill Coldwater Classic contest at ... more

Photo: Paul McHugh

Taking the contest to the community / Santa Cruz surfers vie for spots in professional event

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"The keys will be: Don't try for too many rides and get out of position for better sets; don't go for anything that's licking the cliffs."

The Cold Water draws more than 150 top-caliber surfers from around the world, eager for points that improve their standing in the World Qualifying Series (WQS) and the World Championship Tour (WCT) before the 2006 competition season closes. The Cold Water's $75,000 in prize money adds allure. The event waters its roots, and smooths relations with Santa Cruz's rambunctious surf brotherhood, by permitting local riders to compete in early wildcard heats for four berths in the actual competition.

One sweatshirted local studying the waves was Shane Desmond. Slender, topped by a shock of red hair, Desmond looks every inch the Irishman he was originally. His mother brought him from Ireland to Santa Cruz when he was 4. While working on becoming a potter, she moved into a house with another single mother and her son. The two boys, Desmond and Tom Falkard, became the sort of chums you still see around Santa Cruz today. They rode bikes, surfboards tucked under their arms, to local breaks.

Desmond, 36, started on the gentle swells of Cowell Beach, moved to the Lane, then Tunnels, Pipeline and Sunset in Hawaii. In his 20s, he avidly pursued World Qualifying Series rankings. He has had notable successes. As a big-wave rider at Maverick's, he won the Billabong prize ($10,000) for the largest wave ridden by a paddle-in surfer, a monster with a sheer, 49-foot face, at the 2005 Maverick's contest. He took second in a tow-in contest in Oregon last year with partner Tyler Fox. He's also a master of small shore break, winning two divisions in Half Moon Bay's summer contest.

He remains an avid competitor, yet hasn't scored the sponsorships that would pay his way to contest tours around the globe.

Instead, Desmond married, started a family, and now makes a living as a bartender at El Palomar Taco Bar in town. As he stood, fingering his coffee cup by the rail above Steamer Lane, he mentioned he and wife, Mimi, hadn't gotten much sleep the previous night. Daughter Ella, 2, was teething, and son Emmet, two months old, had kept them awake.

"I'm in the fourth wildcard heat," Desmond said. "Could be anybody's game, today. I'll get my wetsuit, come down for the third heat, listen to how the judges are scoring. My plan is to wait by the cliffs and pick off rides. You generally want to get the judges' attention with a big, dramatic opening move. On my way back out, I'll look for an inside or a Middle Peak wave, something that nobody else can get."

Anthony Ruffo, 41, a "goofy-foot" (right foot forward stance) surfer who won the first, 1985 contest here, is one of Desmond's models. Despite his vast experience, he washed out, underscoring the tricky conditions. Ruffo got up on two larger waves, but they lacked a clean face and traveling peak, tumbling to a close-out before he could carve moves. Back on shore, surfers said they simply had to jump up on a wave, then deal with what they found, instead of trying to predict it.

If the locals had trouble in such conditions, it presaged challenges that would face the traveling, professional circuit stars -- unless this swell improved.

"Steamer Lane is kind of a voodoo spot," said contest director Darren Brilhart, 41, himself a Cold Water veteran. "It's not an easy wave to dominate."

In a green wetsuit and red heat jersey, Desmond grabbed his new board -- a Screwball short board shaped by his old pal Falkard -- and jumped off the Lighthouse Point cliff to plunge into his heat.

Sean Barron got the first ride. Desmond went up and made two turns before his wave mushed out. Josh Loya, on the best wave thus far, slashed hooks off the lip and cutbacks in the pocket to lead with a single wave score of 7.67 (on a scale of 1-10).

Desmond challenged him by rocketing off the point in a fast right cut and whipping through turns with his body laid almost horizontal, for a score of 4.67. His stay in second place was brief. Tashnick eclipsed him again. There was neither enough time nor waves to respond. In the waning seconds, Desmond paddled like a fury for an inside wave, grabbed it, worked a few soft turns as it subsided, then let himself fall back off his board, exhausted.

He knew the result. Loya and Tashnick would advance for the wildcard semifinals, he would not.

"I gave it all my fight," Desmond said, as he trudged up the cove stairs.

The drama nudged up a notch in the first semifinal. Garaway, with a slight lead, hung outside the take-off spot at the point. Closer in, Woliczko, Colombo and Ford-Smith maneuvered for position. But Ford-Smith was far too close to the rocks. A wave came, he jumped on. But the wave angled north, and Ford-Smith was hurled into the cliff.

Although he was on top of his heat by only .47 of a point with five minutes remaining, Garaway helped the dazed Ford-Smith paddle in. Blood painted a red ribbon down his black wetsuit as Ford-Smith limped up the stairs.

Desmond helped strip off Ford-Smith's wetsuit and booties, with a worried look on his face. Desmond had been thrown against the same cliff in just such a freak wave suck-out a few years earlier, breaking his ribs. Ford-Smith had sustained a deep gash and severe bruising, no worse. An ambulance took him off.

Relieved, Desmond took up a post below the judge's stand again.

"I still have a chance to get back in this thing, if some competitors don't show," he said. "I'm on an alternate list. In the meantime, I'm rooting for Josh Mulcoy, who did go through. He's a midtown boy, like myself."

Regardless of the display visiting surf stars put on through Sunday, organizers of the O'Neill Cold Water Classic already can mark down one success: Locals didn't simply accept the contest; they got involved.

Board walk

What: O'Neill Cold Water Classic presented by Jeep, part of the Macy's California Trifecta Surf Series. There is a $75,000 purse for the O'Neill, and a $15,000 bonus for top Trifecta finishers.

Multimedia: Live video and scoring is available at oneill.com. On Sunday, Amp'd Mobile will broadcast the semifinals and final live to the network's mobile phones see, get.ampd.com. There also will be a broadcast at fuel.tv. Go to wavewatch.com for more information.

* Note: If conditions demand, the venue will shift to Waddell Creek, 11 miles north on Highway 1. If so, heats start at 9 a.m. Updates are available at 7 a.m.: (831) 479-5577.